Tuesday, December 26, 2006

V for Vendetta does have to be one of the most political major releases in years. While the source graphic novel is more ambivalent, the movie comes out as anti-authoritarian call to arms against complaceny. To me the movie already seems out of date, as the tide appears to be turning against the Bush revolution. Certainly, it is hard to expect many more preventative wars, although the expansion of executive power still needs to be curtailed. One can only hope that the new Congress will get working upon that.

Politics aside, the movie is quite good as a dystopian thriller. As V, scifi superstar Hugo Weaving is excellent, particularly when you consider he wears a mask for the entire movie. For most of the movie, the dicataor appear only as a giant image on a TV screen, which helps communicate his omnipresence. The heroine, Evey, is pulled into V's plan of vengeance and revolution and serves as a proxy for the whole nation. Her shift from keeping her head down to awareness to action parallels that of the entire English nation.